Ruler Or Representative

As a break from the bloody boring economy this was rather interesting thread ,on which I was opining , nine to the dozen .It was on Hopi Sen, one of my favourite blogs ,although he is a leftist demon who spends his days trying to remove the food from my children’s table ...Hmmm best not think about it . These are the main points in a conversation which is really about what a Poltician is , a representative of your views or a member of an elite ruling caste.

Hop The Trot -“Of course, politicians should disagree with their public. I disagree with the British public on immigration rules and the death penalty, for example. But in disagreeing, it’s important that I start from the point that the reason why voters disagree with me is that they see a problem that my politics therefore needs to find an answer to. If I don’t try and find that answer - if I instead proceed with my own beliefs without reference to that of the people, then I would expect the electorate to find me bankrupt, even if I could point to a thousand policies that seem very worthwhile to me “.

Moi - So lets get this clear then .You impose policies that are loathed on a long term basis not just by Conservatives but by a general majority. Immigration in torrents , The soft treatment of criminals , Multi-culturalism , the European Empire , International Aid , Capital punishment , ( or let us say anti victim policies in general)The smoking ban , … the welter of anti marriage policies , the anti English devolved gerrymander … I could go on , and yet this is still addressing what the voter really worries about .So as I understand it , that’s ok because what you do is listen to what people say and then instead of seeking to do what they say you interpret that as a coded request for you to do the reverse .
I have some sympathy with this . My son constantly wants to eat chocolate ( he’s not four yet) . Now as his parent I know that what he really wants is a long and happy life free of obesity , nourished by carrots and fruit for which he will require an appetite . What I do is pretend he can have chocolate later , pretend that the chocolate is all gone and distract his attention and so on. So although he gets bog all Galaxy Smooth , I have attended to his desires and factored them into my strategy for not meeting them .s nice to know my own infant folly is being treated with the same loving attention to detail by a proxy parent that knows best Sinister at all ?

On your asumption that the future is a golden path towards Socialism interrupted by periods of error , I see it this way. Without the left this country would lok a lot more like the US. Without the Conservative Party it would look a lot more like East Germany or the Soviet Union . That aspiration was indeed explicit for much of the 20th century.

Hopi The Trot -I like your last paragraph, but you’re wrong. Without the left, this country would look like victorian england.
What I find charming about the right is the way all the things progressives have forced on them over the last hundred or so years, including but not limited to the NHS, pensions, a school leaving age higher than seven, slum clearances, sewerage paid for by general taxation, votes for women, votes for the working class, minimum wages, rights at work, etc etc etc etc have all been completely internalised and assimiliated as if they had never had to be fought for. It’s charming and endlessly cheering to watch each successive generation of Conservatives signup for a new wave of formerly radical policies, while simultaneously saying this far and no further. Their remarkable ability to ignore the lunacy of the position is one of the very reasons why I’m so optimistic about politics in general. If each succeeding generation of conservatives can deal so cheerfully with the destruction of everything they stood in the previous generation, they will surely endure.oh, and PS. The smoking ban was (and is) popular, but I didn’t agree with it - I wanted a private clubs exemption and would have voted for it if I was an MP. Turns out I was wrong. The more complete approach works better.

Moi-I daresay you are a larger balder and smellier individual than your three year old self Hopi , nonetheless , your long suffering parents have almost certainly a sense of abiding affection and ‘continuity’ , despite the unpleasant development of ear hair.
..Victorian England was a vortex moral and economic upheaval driven by Capitalism This has remained the primary changing agent not socialism which would have induced stasis as it has it has when applied .You see the past as something to be fought , I see it as ‘pregnant’ with the present Conservatives are the midwives you are the evil fairy .
Your argument might as easily be extended to the claim that the country would look like the Elizabethan period and I have “yes but” for each , but no time . I will accept that the Labour Party your parents voted for , as the BNP put it ,was a necessary evolution in spots but let me put it this way. If were to shout oh Hop would you add a little ginger wine to my whiskey , would you continue pouring until we all drowned in it ? That is what you are doing.
Oh and the smoking ban is not popular amongst the pub going smokers who were eighty percent of its clientele or the landlords shutting up or the towns like mine left with a bleak windy nothing where once there was a lively evening scene Thanks for that and thanks for shutting the working men’s clubs.
Good job